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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26901997">Self-Destruction 101</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel'>babybel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(kind of), Angst, Character Study, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Gen, Whumptober, a touch of dr nyarlathotep vibes, not a happy ending :(, ten's weird personal brand of self loathing and self harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:47:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26901997</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>the doctor thinks through his options while preparing to erase donna's memories. he does it half to save her life, and half to ruin his. it's what they both deserve.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tenth Doctor &amp; Donna Noble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Self-Destruction 101</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i wrote this because i love to make myself sad 🤪</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“It hurts,” Donna says. She’s blinking fast, her double-helix brain trying to cope with triple-helix brainwaves. Or maybe being changed into triple-helix, cell by cell. Human DNA mutates so quickly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has to do it, he has to. “I know. There’s a way I can fix it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, I flipping hope so,” she manages, her normally strong words having gone shaky and half-whispered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have to take your memories,” he admits. “Reset your brain. It’ll save your life.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right. Okay. Yeah, let’s do that,” she breathes. “It’s been two hours and fourteen- fourteen- fourteen- fourteen-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Donna, Donna.” He shakes his head to shush her. It’s killing him. He can’t even imagine how wrong her head must feel trying to compute that; a time sense bouncing signals through a human temporal lobe. “It’s not just that, I’d- have to block off everything. Everything we did together. All your memories of me, and of this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donna takes a step back, like she’s- not scared of him. Angry at him. Her eyes are still glowing with a form of energy she never even should’ve come in contact with. “No.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll die,” he says, maybe a little sharply, but just because he can’t stand back and watch it happen. He can’t. “I have to.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” She’s crying; he can see the tracks on her cheeks glint in the light coming off her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Donna.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” Her voice breaks on the word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shakes his head again. It’s just unbelievably painful, it’s- she’s looking right at him, and even though she’s slipping beneath the surface of cognitive overload, she’s still so clearly daring him to try and tell her something contrary. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reaches out to pull her into a hug and she slaps his hand down before he can touch her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t.” She says it low and bitter. “Don’t- don’t- don’t you-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s the only way.” He blinks. It’s not the only way. There’s no way it’s the only way. In all the universe, and in all the time in the universe, he’s bound to be able to find another way, multiple other ways. He’s never been one for determinism. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he is, now, with this, and it not so much dawns on him as crashes on him, crushing him, why that is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donna draws in a gasping breath, and she’s shaking her head, she’s disgusted with him, and good, she should be. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The easy explanation for this sudden abandonment of the familiar </span>
  <em>
    <span>there’s always another way</span>
  </em>
  <span> mantra he’s held for most of his lives is simply that finding that other way would take too much time. He can’t put himself through those minutes, hours, maybe even months, years, decades that it would take to find a cure for Donna’s ailment, because the entire time she’d be in pain, and he’d have to bear that. He cannot do that. His own pain, yes, fine. Donna’s? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, it’s only been fifteen minutes since the regeneration energy started hurting her like this, and he’s already committed to going back on a promise he made more than half a millennium ago: never ever touch anyone’s memories without consent. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The less easy explanation, the more truthful one, the uglier one, is something he only allows himself to think now, and it’s that Donna deserves better. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’ve both been tricking themselves into thinking they’re living a perfect life with each other, but that’s not true, and he knows it, even if she hasn’t figured it out yet. Truly, he’s not the person she deserves to spend her life with. Truly, he’s hardly a person at all anymore, as much as he’s strived for a compact identity, especially over these past few years. That striving’s all for nothing, because he’s an amalgamation of thoughts and impulses and shadows and eyes and tendencies for killing the people around him, however indirectly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her life without him, he accepts, as he watches her hands shake, will be safer for her, and better for her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s also the fact - and this is perhaps even truer and more deeply lodged in him than the last explanation - that he’s gone a bit too long without acknowledging what he is. Without punishing himself for what he is. A killer, a cruel, selfish creature. Cruel, selfish creatures don’t deserve the happiness and the healthiness that he got with Donna. Self destruction 101: remove the thing that heals you. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is as clean a break as they’d get, he figures. Give them both what they deserve. Get it over and done with and cauterized before the thought of living without her gets any worse, because he’s not sure it can get any worse. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He crosses over to Donna and presses his fingers to her temples, cradling her face in his hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s still saying it, over and over, “No, no, no,” and if he didn’t know any better he’d think it’s that record skip again, a side effect of the breakdown her cognitive structure is going through. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He does know better, though. This is something he’s going to regret for the rest of his life. And that sharpest truest part of him says, good. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It happens so quickly, and he whispers that he’s sorry and he hugs her to his chest and that’s it, it’s over. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For once, his ship doesn’t fight him. He gathers Donna into his arms and holds her and doesn’t touch the console, and his ship takes off, and lands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He steps out onto the knife’s edge that is the hardwood floor of Donna’s family home, and presses his lips together and fights the closing of his throat as Wilf shuffles over to meet him, face drawn with worry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He explains everything, once he and Wilf lay Donna down on the sofa. She’s still out, and will be for another ten minutes at least. Another eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds, according to her timeline, which he swears off checking in on the moment after he does it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wilf is crying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hates when Wilf cries. He tries to pull the old fellow in for a hug, but Wilf - and he sees where Donna gets most of it from now - pushes him away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t you fix it?” Wilf asks, pale eyes gone red around the rims with tears. “She’s going to get better, isn’t she?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he answers slowly, and he nods, and his head feels heavy. “She’s going to get better. But she won’t remember. She- can’t remember.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But-” And Wilf just looks up at him, hopeless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s nothing he can say. He loathes the authority he has, because all he has to do is shake his head, and Wilf takes it as gospel. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he leaves Donna, he leaves broken, and he intends to stay that way. It’s like settling into an old chair; settling into his worth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s about time he was broken again. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on tumblr @lesbiandonnanoble</p></blockquote></div></div>
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